Update: there’s a denial, which in turn is also being questioned. Conclusion: nope, not happening.
Russian manufacturer Yota, well known for its Yotaphone dual screen phones, has announced that its next devices will no longer operate using Android but Sailfish, an alternative developed by former Nokia engineers at Jolla.
Interesting, if not a bit of an odd decision. One has to wonder what prompted this decision, because even though I like Sailfish for what it represents, it’s far from a true alternative to Android or iOS. Maybe Yota knows something about Sailfish 2.0 we don’t?
I’m intrigued.
I am gonna throw my lot in with it more being that Google controls Android. Google, the AMERICAN company. Russia is being very anti everything at the moment but particularly anti-american.
Sailfish is going to be used by the Russian government. It’s logical for them to use a Russian manufacturer. If you have a big contract for you phones with sailfish, why also use android?
Jolla is Finnish…
And Android is crap! Can’t blame them.
http://www.osnews.com/story/28565/_Sailfish_to_become_Russia_s_offi…
Maybe they were worried about the recent decision by the Supreme Court not to hear the Oracle/Google case. They may fear it’ll mean having to sign a contract with Oracle, not the most stable company in the business right now.
I’m pretty sure Russian companies not give a flying shit about the decision of some court in US but they are more worried about NSA having hooks inside the OS.
Probably not since decisions of the US Supreme Court matters nil to a Russian manufacturer (or anyone outside the US, for that matter).
What ? Something from the US not affecting the whole world and solar system ? It can’t be, let’s call Bruce Willis…
I’m sure there’s probably a treaty somewhere they can use the ISDS clause of to sue. That’s all the rage right now for international corps who feel another country isn’t respecting their Holy IP.
It’s apparently been denied: http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/07/04/no-the-yotaphone-isnt-swit…
“Tizen is actually slightly more useful than Sailfish”
Really?
There is no planned consumer version of this device with sailfish at this time.
There is an (open) secret version of this device being developed, for use by Russian government officials, that uses sailfish. It may or may not see the light of day but certainly the firmware will get leaked eventually.
So anything not American
As a Russian, I’m pretty sure that this is their motivation.
Kind of odd. During the cold war, basically all the Russian computers were rip offs of American designs. Why stop now? Just take aosp and hack it up. No espionage required! Although, if you’d rather do things the old way, I’ll gladly sell you the aosp code.
Cold war computers weren’t connected to internet.
Sure. The internet is the only way to sabatage equipment or steal information. Good point.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage
What’s so far in it from the true alternative? I’d chose it any time over iOS and Android.
When Android allows a shit bug like making the Exchange Services download almost 3GB of data within less than a week, it’s no wonder they’d want to switch.
Just saying.
I wish Jolla/Sailfish based phones would be available in the USA, I absolutely hate Android and iOS, and since Sailfish has an Android compatibility layer, I’d be set.
the only thing more useless would be RIM software.
I think Jolla would do better to adopt a similar strategy as CyanogenMod did. Get it on some phones for free, work our the kinks then work with other oems based on that success. Right now, I’ve hears glowing and damning reviews of Sailfish. Id be very hesitant to buy a device that locked me into sailfish, unless it was firefox os priced ( like $99 off contract).
So having Yota ship Sailfish would be walking before crawling. Its a good idea, but in the wrong order.